Today, people often use wireless networks within their home so that various electronic devices within the home may communicate with one another without having to wire the devices together. Music, video, financial, and other data are just a few examples of items that may be exchanged through a wireless network in the home.
People utilizing a wireless network demand secure communications. Data exchange between devices should be protected from eavesdropping and impersonation.
One problem with establishing a secure wireless network is that it may be difficult for an end user to configure devices in the home to share wireless network settings, such as a cryptographic (master) key. Often, to establish a network connection, a user has to enter a password and/or other network settings into a new device. Sometimes a user may find it difficult to find such a password and/or settings. Even if found, entering such data into a wireless device or numerous devices may be difficult, because the data to be entered may be significant in length causing users to choose obvious character sequence for a (weak) key vulnerable to a dictionary attack. In addition, many wireless devices often do not include a keyboard or a data entry device that provides simple entry of characters.